What Ever Happened to the Presidential Yacht?

The "floating White House" once provided a venue for American officials, prom parties, and leisurely afternoons offshore. Now it's rotting away in a boatyard and has become home to raccoons.

By
Oliver Sharpe

Jul 17, 2017

The USS Sequoia was built in 1925 and served eight presidents before Jimmy Carter put it up for auction in 1977

John F. Kennedy added a king-size bed to the yacht and celebrated his 46th birthday on the boat. Marilyn Monroe may have also joined him for a cruise or two.

It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and commanded rental fees of $10,000 a day at one point.

It's now reportedly deteriorating in a Virginia boatyard. Following a prolonged legal battle, a judge last year awarded a Washington, D.C.-based company the right to acquire it for $0.

Presidents travel in style. Perks of the office include a custom Boeing 747 for long range journeys, a Sikorsky Sea King helicopter for shorter jaunts, and an apocalypse-proof armored Cadillac limousine, nicknamed "the Beast," for ground transit. As luxurious as this sounds, one form of transportation has been conspicuously absent from the chief executive's lineup for 40 years: the presidential yacht.

Before private golf clubs and wide-body jets arrived on the scene, the presidential yacht alone symbolized the power and prestige of the highest office in the land. Every commander-in-chief from Rutherford B. Hayes to Gerald Ford enjoyed the use of a government vessel for both business and leisure pursuits.

President Gerald Ford hosts a Cabinet dinner and cruise on the USS Sequoia.

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

Numerous ships have been commissioned to carry the president since 1880. The longest serving and most famous among them is the USS Sequoia, which carried eight presidents as a "floating White House" from 1933 until 1977. Docked at Pier One in the Washington Navy Yard, the presidential yacht provided an easily accessible and secure location for conducting meetings, entertaining dignitaries, and avoiding media scrutiny.

Herbert Hoover fishes off the Sequoia.

AP

Designed by renowned Norwegian naval architect Johan Trumpy in 1925, the 104-foot, mahogany-hulled motor yacht could sleep six and accommodate 40 revelers for cocktails on the spacious aft-deck or 22 guests for a formal dinner in the salon. Trumpy yachts represented the pinnacle of seafaring luxury in their day and were sought out by titans of industry like DuPont, Chrysler, Firestone, and Dodge for their speed, range, and comfort.

Purchased from a Texas oil tycoon by the U.S. Government in 1931, the Sequoia was briefly deployed by the Department of Commerce as a decoy ship on the Mississippi in an effort to capture rum-runners during Prohibition. It was officially commissioned by the Navy in 1933 and President Hoover promptly sailed the newly christened USS Sequoia to Florida for a sport-fishing expedition. President Hoover had decommissioned the 318-foot USS Mayflower as an austerity measure early in his term but was so fond of the Sequoia that he featured it on the White House Christmas card in 1932. A move that many construed as callous as he sought to steer the country out of the depths of the Great Depression.

President Hoover featured the yacht on his 1932 Christmas card.

Photo By Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images

Franklin Roosevelt also fished from Sequoia, often pulling perch from the Potomac River, but primarily used the boat for more serious matters. During World War II he and Winston Churchill discussed military strategies on board, meetings that required FDR to officially decommission the ship to accommodate the prime minister who would not drink on a Navy vessel. The change in official status allowed for the guilt-free consumption of "Churchill Martinis" while the two discussed D-Day cruising the Chesapeake.

Each president updated Sequoia to serve his personal needs and tastes. FDR installed an elevator to more easily access each deck by wheelchair, and Harry Truman added a spinet piano to the main salon. LBJ lowered the floor of the shower to accommodate his six-foot-four frame and replaced FDR's elevator with a wet bar.

John F. Kennedy, whose modifications included the addition of a king-size bed, used Sequoia sparingly. He did celebrate his 46th, and final, birthday on board, however, and it is rumored that Marilyn Monroe joined him for a cruise or two. It is hard to know for sure, though, as a crewmember destroyed all of the relevant ship's logs after Kennedy's death.

Richard Nixon was the most avid sailor of the Sequoia, logging 88 trips while in office. Some voyages were better than others. He negotiated the SALT I nuclear arms treaty with General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev on board and anguished over the decision to resign with a bottle of scotch at Truman's piano. He went on to announce to his family the plan to resign the presidency, rather than face impeachment, while cruising the Potomac.

President Johnson entertains guests on the aft deck.

LBJ Presidential Library

The first family was often aboard but no presidential offspring made better use of Sequoia than Gerald Ford's daughter, Susan. She and friends from Holton Arms School enjoyed the sunset and a dinner of beef stroganoff in the main salon before celebrating their senior prom at the White House in 1975. She also celebrated her 19th birthday on board and joined her father for many of his cabinet meeting-cum-dinner parties, which the gregarious president visibly enjoyed.

In an interview about the Sequoia with Newsweek in 2012, Henry Kissinger explained the unique day-to-day role of the yacht: "It's important for the president to be by himself, to remove himself from the machinery of the White House. Of course, he can get on a plane and go to Florida or anywhere else, but that requires throwing the machinery into motion. But here, he just can say at five o'clock, 'I'm going to the boat, I'm taking four or five people. And you don't have to call it a meeting and you don't have to prepare the papers.'"

Richard M. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev aboard the Sequoia

The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum

Its reputation as a diplomatic instrument and suitable refuge for wary presidents could not protect the Sequoia from the prevailing political tides of 1977. The tab for keeping the Sequoia shipshape and staffed was running $800,000 a year when Jimmy Carter took office, and he viewed the expense as "unjustified and unnecessary." In keeping with his campaign promise to trim the trappings of the "Imperial Presidency," President Carter ceremoniously auctioned it off for $236,000, bringing to an end the era of the presidential yacht.

Gerald Ford and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on the Sequoia

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

For many years following President Carter’s sale, the Sequoia enjoyed celebrity status in the private sector. Famed not only for her long service to presidents, but also as one of the best-preserved Trumpys still floating, the yacht commanded rental fees of $10,000 per day. The Sequoia was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and renters were able to experience a yacht preserved to presidential standards.

As with all wooden hulled vessels, the Sequoia required near constant maintenance, often having to be hauled out of the water for repairs. During one such refit Washington attorney Gary Silversmith, whose Sequoia Presidential Yacht Group LLC operated the vessel, became entangled in a lawsuit with a lender. The boat remained "on the hard" (on land) as the case wound its way through the courts, allowing it to fall further into disrepair.

Vice Chancellor Sam Glassock, the presiding judge in the case, noted the depressing state of the once-glamorous ship in his 2016 ruling: "The Sequoia, an elderly and vulnerable wooden yacht, is sitting on an inadequate cradle on an undersized marine railway in a moribund boatyard on the western shore of the Chesapeake, deteriorating and, lately, home to raccoons."

The ship’s dining room and piano

Getty ImagesPhoto By Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images

Glassrock ruled that FE Partners LLC, a joint venture between the D.C.-based Equator Capital Group and members of an Indian family with connections to the mining and shipping industry, could acquire the yacht for $0. FE Partners, which also owns Joseph P. Kennedy’s 31-foot yawl Tenovus, has said it plans to return the Sequoia to her home waters once the raccoons are evicted and the restoration is completed.

This will be no small feat but Michael Cantor, managing partner at Equator Capital Group, is determined to see Sequoia sail again. He speculates that journey will require a specialized crane to remove the yacht from the marine railway to a boatyard staffed with at least 20 historically trained shipwrights who will need to source three specific types of wood for the keel, frame, and hull. The price tag for the restoration could ultimately reach into the millions of dollars, but to Cantor the cost and effort are worthwhile to preserve what he views as the most significant piece of American history in private hands. He adds that should any president want to use the yacht once it is completed, it will certainly be available to them.

The presidential yacht’s bedroom

Photo By Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images

Throughout its storied career, the Sequoia bore witness to all the hallmarks of the modern presidency: historic feats of diplomacy, alleged extramarital affairs, and Russian intrigue. The office still claims many of those traits, but it no longer has the yacht. That ship has sailed.

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